Barrel-Bottom Scraping
Well, congratulations. The writers/producers of Offspring have been working hard to sink it for some time now - and they've finally done it.
This enormously popular TV show which used to be an eccentric comedy where even the inevitable disasters were a temporary and savable bump on a longer road has succumbed to cheap sentiment, tacky exploitation and worst of all, creative sterility.
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| OK so far - you think ?? |
In simple terms, they BLEW IT !!!!
It takes a lot to get me to watch commercial TV. (How do they succeed so brilliantly at dumping such an avalanche of mindless, irrelevant, odious crap on the soft-boiled public? - stupid question, I know.)
Anyway, in Offspring they had a show which made it all worthwhile, well, bearable. It was the kind of thing which did better than just entertain: it engaged the viewer with its wonderful quirkiness; the intelligent diversity of characters; the hotbed of inevitably dramatic events caused by unstable people getting in each others way. Riveting, until .....
WHAT GOES THROUGH THE MIND OF A WRITER ?? Faced with having created a first-rate and justifiably successful program what do they say? I'd really like to know. One thing they so rarely say, though, is:
'this is perfect - enough is enough - let's end on a high note.'
So, Offspring descended into angst, soul-scarring, betrayal, self-interest, offence, intrigue and endless indecision, all in a desperate attempt to make it more relevant, to follow real life, to expand the creators' repertoire, and (most importantly) to make more money.
And all the while it was crashing down this diversionary, frightfully modern, infuriating slope it forgot what it was supposed to be.
Between a viewer/reader and a writer an understanding builds up, a kind of expectation. It is not an obligation, after all, an author can damn well write whatever she or he likes, and a good thing too. BUT, it doesn't come free - BEWARE the dashing of a viewer's/reader's hopes and trust, especially if the direction is wrong, the events unbelievable, and the outcomes farcical or worse, cheap -
- all these stupid things happened to Offspring.
Where oh where was the light? We were treated to:
Billie's financial implosion;
the triumph of the vile D'Arabont;
the prospect the baby might be dead;
Billie's fling with a nonentity who should, to further the series, make her pregnant;
the threats to Nina and Patrick's relationship;
the breakdown of Billie and Mick's relationship;
the breakdown of Geraldine and Phillip's relationship;
the breakdown of Martin and Cherie's relationship;
the testing of Jimmy and Zara's relationship;
the confusions of the lesbian thing;
and God knows what else.
Thus, to introduce an entertaining and uplifting tone to the wrist-slitting, the writer/s thought it would be a good idea to kill-off Patrick. How inspiring!
But no, just sensation trawling, emotionally corrupt, audience exploiting, and amateur. It was the pathetic best they could manage to come up with to account for actor, Matthew Le Nevez, having a pressing professional engagement elsewhere. And EVEN MORE contemptible, they wrote a death and grieving scene which squeezed every agonised drop of sentimentality from a tragic event deserving of more restraint. Only memorably accomplished acting lent the scene some dignity. Pity such fine talent had to be squandered in such a fruitless exercise.
The writers are deluding themselves - it isn't clever, or ground-breaking - it's egotistical indulgence and finally sensationalist, lazy writing.
Pushing everything along was the disgraceful opportunism of Channel 10, but what else could you expect from this bottom-of-the-barrel station.
I used to look forward to Offspring, a consistently high-quality show that was sure of its purpose, of course before the current remorseless plunge into doubt, depression, despair and death. But now -
I've Switched OFF.
